


Learning Curve

by mint_curiosity



Category: Firefly, Parks and Recreation
Genre: Crack, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Fluff, Gen, Pre-Series, Tom's genuinely terrible business ideas, new fandoms and characters will be added as i post new chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 14:06:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11510976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mint_curiosity/pseuds/mint_curiosity
Summary: The crew ofSerenityfigures out how to handle having passengers on board the hard way.The hard way turns out to involve a lot of glitter, some panic, and one (1) feelings stick.





	Learning Curve

_Serenity_ picks up Tom Haverford on a terrible backwater moon only a few steps above Whitefall in terms of civilization. From the tone of the message he sent answering their posted passenger vacancy, Mal was expecting some sort of unfortunately named teenage girl. What he gets is so much worse.

“Wow,” Tom says the second they step into the hold. “This ship is _ancient_! It’s like all the junk in the Pawnee River joined together and had a kid. But like, nine hundred years ago.”

Mal grinds his teeth together. At this point, his mouth will just be full of dust by the time he can kick this moron off on Londinium. “Feel free to leave,” he offers, in what he thinks is a friendly tone. Zoë shoots him a look. Well. Maybe it wasn’t too friendly.

Tom removes his ridiculous, tiny hat with a flourish and sets it on top of the pile of gleaming luggage in the cart behind him. “Nope. Turns out, Tommy’s digging the vintage today. Among other things.” And then he winks at Zoë. 

Zoë, her face unmoving, shifts her left hand down to one of her holsters so that her ring gleams in _Serenity_ ’s lights. Tom, seemingly unimpressed by both the idea of a married woman and the threat of gun violence, just keeps grinning. 

Mal briefly entertains the idea of tossing him back onto his raccoon-infested rock of a planet, then remembers their dwindling protein supply and Kaylee’s increasingly dire warnings about parts for the air filtration system. They need the money. _It’ll be worth it_.

*

Kaylee stares down into the last container of protein, jaw slack. She shifts it to the side again, just to make sure she’s not going crazy.

Tiny fragments of glitter flash up at her. She blinks hard, then looks again. The protein continues to gleam. 

Frowning, Kaylee replaces the lid. She has to be imagining things. It _is_ the dead of night, after all, and she hasn’t slept yet. She’s been trying to figure out a way to rig the vents so the need for replacement ventilation parts isn’t quite as urgent. Maybe she should just go to bed.

That’s when she notices the label.

Far from the typical bland print detailing serving size and nutrition facts, a huge, brightly patterned sticker blares, “Fancy Feast – make every meal shiny!” She squints at it in the dim light. _Am I dreaming_?

“D’you like it?”

Kaylee yelps and snatches a wrench out of her toolbelt. Tom Haverford is standing by the table in a pair of actual silk pajamas, beaming. Heart pounding, Kaylee lowers her wrench slowly.

“Is this yours?” she asks incredulously, pointing at the container of glitter and protein.

“Technically, it’s yours. But the idea? That’s all mine.” He makes a dramatic motion with his arms, staring at her as if she’s a camera. “Tommy’s Fancy Feast. Make every meal shiny.”

Dubiously, Kaylee asks, “Can you eat it?”

Tom winks. “Not that batch. That’ll probably kill you. But it would be a shiny last meal!”

Kaylee blinks. Tom seems completely unaware of the fact that he dumped a pound of inedible glitter into, quite literally, their last meal. Their shiny, shiny last meal.

 _Someone’s going to have to explain this to Mal_.

*

“Two days,” Mal says, voice strained. “Two days on our ship and that little bastard has us grounded for a whole cycle because he can’t keep his hands out of the food supply.”

Zoë thinks the shore leave was nice; they’d all had a chance to get off _Serenity_ and into a number filthy bars for a few hours, even their rogue glitter-happy passenger.

Wash grunts, powering the ship up with practiced ease. “I still think we should have tried to convince Jayne the glitter would give him magic powers if he ate it.”

“He would have died, dear,” Zoë says drily, more amused at the current state of affairs than anything. 

Wash shrugs. “Details, details,” he says and casually launches them toward the atmosphere.

Ten minutes later, they’re clear of the planet completely. Zoë leaves Mal and Wash talking (arguing) about fuel conservation on the way to Londinium, deciding to see if Kaylee and Jayne have managed to get the new supply of protein stored away yet.

She steps into the kitchen and whips her gun out the next second. There’s a shirtless man lounging at the table, and Kaylee and Jayne are nowhere to be found. Neither, for that matter, is Tom. She is suddenly much less amused.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” says the man at the table, standing up abruptly and shrinking back against the wall like an especially pathetic animal. “No need for that, baby!” 

“Tell me who you are, or I shoot you,” Zoë snaps. The only clothing on his body is a fancy scarf tied around his waist and draped over his crotch. She grimaces.

“I’m with Tom!” he squeals, somehow managing to cower even more. It’s mildly impressive. 

“My name is Jean-Ralphio Saperstein! Please don’t shoot me, hot leather pants lady!”

Zoë briefly considers shooting him anyway. Unfortunately, Tom himself appears in the doorway and starts yelling a panicked array of phrases that only stop when she drops the gun to her side. 

“He’s on his way out!” Tom says frantically. “Five minutes, tops!”

“That seems unlikely,” Zoë responds coolly. “Since we’re in space.”

“Oh,” says the man in the silk loincloth. “Now _this_ is a crazy night!”

*

Inara arrives in the kitchen to find everyone else already at the table. Stacks of protein containers are lying forgotten on the floor. As promised, another new face is seated with the others, although he is wearing considerably more clothes than he was in Kaylee’s red-faced, giggling description twenty minutes ago.

Mal looks up at she enters, breaking off his low conversation with Zoë. “Inara, Jean-Ralphio. He’s Tom’s old business partner that Tom claims he just happened across in a bar last night,” he says, pointing at the new passenger. “Jean-Ralphio, never talk to her.”

Irritated, Inara glares at Mal, then turns to Jean-Ralphio. “You are absolutely allowed to speak with me.”

“Oh, we don’t need to talk, babe,” Jean-Ralphio croons, then throws his head back and sings, “Our bodies can do the talking fooooooooor uuuuuuuuus!”

Inara refuses to give Mal the satisfaction of a glance, but she can see his self-righteous expression out of the corner of her eye. “Charming,” she chooses to say flatly, and sits down between Kaylee and Wash. Jean-Ralphio preens, ignoring Tom’s grimace of distress. Inara thinks there’s a reason Tom hasn’t tried his luck with her, and she thinks the reason is standing at the head of the table wearing stupidly high pants and a pair of suspenders. _Something else to discuss later_.

Wash leans over to her. “We can’t turn around and put him back because we just barely have enough fuel to make it to Londinium, and there aren’t any good stops. Mal’s in denial,” he whispers. “Also, what are your feelings on feeding the sparkly protein to Jayne tonight and seeing if he notices? Positive to neutral? Either one works.”

Inara’s answer is cut off by Mal telling Jean-Ralphio, “We can’t take you back.” Judging by the strain in his voice, just making this statement has given him a hernia.

Jean-Ralphio and Tom high-five. “Road trip!” they chorus, much too gleefully for two people with a spaceship captain who is also technically a felon staring at them with fury in his eyes.

“How are you going to pay us for an extra person?” Mal asks sharply, putting an end to their celebration. Inara wonders if she’s about to witness him spontaneously combust.

“Technically, I haaaave noooo moneyyyyyyyy!” Jean-Ralphio warbles, then leans back with a smirk. “But I did go to a Companion training thingy for a day before I got kicked out. If you’re interested.” He winks at Mal, and Inara hears Wash choke on a laugh.

The offer is seven different kinds of illegal. Inara wonders if this is the sort of thing she needs to report to her guild. She decides that the chances of anyone taking this man up on Companionship are slightly below zero. Not worth bothering.

*

Wash is jolted awake by a blaring proximity alarm some time during the night cycle. Zoë is out of bed even faster than he is. Both of them manage to get pants on in under thirty seconds, and then Wash is up the ladder while Zoë straps her guns on and then bolts up behind him.

By the time he makes it up to the bridge and gets himself in his chair, there’s a video call request waiting. There’s a ship directly below them, close enough to scrape _Serenity_ ’s underbelly if either of them shifts trajectory too dramatically.

“Alliance transponders,” he breathes, trying to remember if they’ve been put on any watchlists lately. Zoë curses softly behind him.

Mal clatters into the room a moment later, then Jayne right behind him, hauling Vera and muttering death threats about the still-blaring alarms.

“I’ve got Kaylee in the engine room. What the hell is this?” Mal’s at the end of his admittedly short rope, and Wash can hardly blame him.

Zoë answers as Wash tries frantically to key off the alarm. “Alliance ship flying directly underneath us, sir. They’re requesting video contact.”

“We don’t have an active warrant right now!” Mal protests, as if saying that to his crew will make the other ship go away.

“Great,” Wash says. “Do you want to let the people who care know?”

Mal grimaces, glancing at Zoë. She nods her support. “Take the call.”

A moment after Wash selects the acceptance, a man appears on the screen. The atmosphere on the bridge gets tenser at his crisp Alliance uniform. Jayne makes a lousy attempt to hide Vera behind his back, which is stupid for multiple reasons, including the fact that he is standing out of the camera’s range.

The man on the screen opens his mouth to speak, but gets cut off by a large swath of blonde hair that swings into the frame. Wash stares in bemusement as a woman, notably not in a crisp Alliance uniform, sticks her head much too close to the camera and asks furiously, “Where’s Tom? I know you have him, you…you seedy criminals!”

Under his breath, Mal launches into a string of terrible names directed toward the Tom in question. Wash mouths the phrase ‘seedy criminals’ at Zoë in delight. His wife rolls her eyes. In the background of the video feed, a muffled voice keeps repeating the name ‘Leslie’ with escalating frustration. 

The blonde woman, presumably Leslie, simply keeps glaring into the screen expectantly. “Well?” she snaps after a few moments of silence.

Mal recovers himself suddenly and says with admirable calm, “We have no standing warrant on this ship or its crew for arrest.” 

Wash can see it in Leslie’s eyes: she could not care less whether or not they have a standing warrant. She takes a deep breath, possibly to verbally fillet Mal, but pauses, eyes locked on something behind him. The look on her face shifts completely, and she yells, “Tom! Tom! We’re here to rescue you!” so loudly that the speakers shriek with feedback.

Tom, Jean-Ralphio, and Inara are all standing in the hatchway, Inara looking as though she would rather be much farther away from the other two, like a couple lightyears. All three of them are wearing the exact same intricately patterned silk robe, which is probably the source of most of the horror on Inara’s face. Wash has never wished more deeply for a camera.

“Who is that?” Mal growls at Tom, jerking a thumb back at Leslie’s huge face on the screen. She is now fighting off her male companion, who appears to be trying to shove her out of the frame.

“Yeah Tommy,” Jean-Ralphio says keenly. “ _Who_ is _that_?” He cranes his neck to try and get a better view of the screen, actually licking his lips.

Tom winces, sucking a breath in through his teeth. “That,” he says, “is my boss. Ex-boss.”

“ _You’re_ Alliance?” Mal says. He sounds like a man enduring torture.

“Nah, we’re just local government,” Tom answers archly, smoothing out his robe. “Her boyfriend, on the other hand…”

As if on cue, the man finally manages to shove Leslie off to the side. “We are requiring you to allow us to board and retrieve Ms. Knope’s kidnapped employee. This is under the authority of Alliance Officers Wyatt and Traeger.”

“You got Alliance on that shit moon?” Jayne asks Tom in astonishment, all attempts to hide Vera abandoned.

Tom shrugs. “Chris and Ben came to shake taxes out of us two years ago. Ben’s a huge weirdo nerd, so he and Leslie started doing the do and now we’re here.”

Mal leans in over Wash. “Nobody kidnapped anyone!” He looks completely ready to throw down with ‘huge weirdo nerd’ Ben Wyatt/Traeger, who doesn’t really look ready to throw down with anything in Wash’s opinion. Not even, like, a paper bag. Or Jean-Ralphio.

“I beg to differ!” Leslie puts in from just off screen. Wash thinks _she_ would throw down with _anyone_ at this point.

“Look,” says Alliance Officer Wyatt-or-Traeger. It’s obvious that he’s sweating buckets even on the grainy video screen. “Let’s just discuss this in person.”

*

Jayne is stationed where he typically is for boarding situations: tucked up on a walkway with Vera in case it gets nasty. He really hopes this gets nasty.

It starts out real promising. The skinny Alliance man brings a lot more people onto the ship than they were expecting. Mal and Zoë are the only two _Serenity_ crew members greeting them on the deck, but their two passengers are hovering in the background, fancy Inara-robes and all.

There are six people facing down Mal and Zoë. Jayne shifts his aim to each of them in turn. At the front are the crazy blonde woman and her prissy Alliance man, who is the only one in uniform. Two have weapons: a dead-eyed girl with a knife dangling loosely from her hand and a stone-faced man with a mustache Jayne admires for a moment and a gleaming pistol he admires for much longer. The last two Jayne writes off in an instant, a blond man looking around and grinning like this is a party and an overweight old guy who hovers at the seal looking deeply unsure.

“Unhand Tom!” the blonde woman yells. The Alliance man puts a hand on her arm, which she shakes off.

“Mr. Haverford paid for passage to Londinium,” Mal says sharply.

“Oh, shut up. I know this ship is for doing crime. I’ve seen your records! You _snatched_ him!” The woman starts forward, and Zoë’s hand is on her gun in a flash. Jayne grins as the woman draws herself up short at the movement.

The girl holding the knife calls, “Can I stab someone now, Leslie?”

The blonde woman, Leslie, whips her head around. “April, no- “

“Oh my god, babe, do that guy up there with the gun!” smiling-party-guy says enthusiastically.

April rolls her eyes dramatically. "Andy, he's, like, ten feet above our heads." 

“Guh jun duh hwoon dahn,” Jayne snarls under his breath. Andy is pointing directly at his position. Sullenly, he stands, since everyone's staring at him already.

Leslie rounds on Zoë and Mal. “You have a _sniper_?” she spits.

“Technically,” says the Alliance man, “he’s not far away enough to be a sniper.”

“Guys?” calls the fat man at the hatchway. “Donna says Chris wants us back on the ship in ten minutes.”

“Shut up, Jerry!” Leslie yells without turning around.

“Okay,” says Jerry. 

Jayne decides he’ll probably shoot that guy first, just for the hell of it.

“Tom,” says the man with the mustache, glaring past Mal and Zoë. “Please inform Ms. Knope whether or not you went with these criminals willingly.”

“Yes, why don’t you tell her that,” Mal says sardonically.

“I needed to go to Londinium to sell Fancy Feast!” Tom blurts out. 

Leslie Knope looks horrified. “You didn’t even tender your resignation!”

“Hold on,” the Alliance man says. “What is Fancy Feast?”

The man with the mustache speaks for the first time. “It’s an abomination.”

“What do you know, Ron, you live in a hut,” Tom says derisively.

Ron’s mustache quivers. For some reason, Jayne finds it a little sinister. “Watch your mouth, son.”

“Seriously, what is Fancy Feast?” The Alliance man is in over his head. Jayne is definitely enjoying the show.

Tom launches into a sales pitch. “Tommy’s Fancy Feast is an innovative new way to make every meal shiny! Are you tired of the same old protein? Why not- “

“He dumps inedible glitter into food supplies,” Zoë says flatly. Her hand is off her gun – she doesn’t think these people are a threat. Jayne holds Vera more securely. If he’s the only backup, he’s sure as hell gonna shoot some people if he can.

“Well, whatever it is, you can’t call it that,” the Alliance man says. “Fancy Feast is a copyright held by a company from Earth-That-Was.”

“Why do you know that, Ben? Why are you such a freak?” Tom groans.

“This is not important!” Leslie is now waving her arms frantically. “Just come back to Pawnee with us, Tom, please. We need you. Orrin’s been sitting at your desk for three days, and he won’t move.”

“I’ll _come_ back with you, babe,” coos Jean-Ralphio.

Disgust crosses Leslie’s face. “Ew, what? Who are you?” The question is completely ignored, possibly because no one has an adequate explanation.

“I’ll come back,” Tom says finally, “on one condition.”

“Name it,” Leslie says swiftly, recovering from her Jean-Ralphio induced horror.

Tom grins. “I get to pilot Ben’s fancy government ship.”

“That’s illegal!” Ben protests, but Leslie makes a shushing noise at him.

“Done. Let’s go, sir!” Leslie starts to turn, then hesitates, eyeing Jean-Ralphio. “Not you, weasel man.”

“Oh no,” Mal cuts in firmly. “You’re taking that one too.”

“He’s my business partner!” Tom adds helpfully, ignoring Leslie’s grimace. “Wait, I need my stuff.”

“Nope! Got it all here for you.” Kaylee emerges from the back of the hold, luggage piled high on the cart in front of her. Mal immediately sent her to pack up the room the instant the possibility of getting Tom and Jean-Ralphio off the ship had presented itself. His seeming reluctance was mainly to distract the Alliance officer from the fact that, in fact, the majority of the crew could probably be arrested for one thing or another fairly easily. It worked.

“We’re leaving now,” says Ron firmly, since neither Leslie nor Ben has said anything concerning their actual departure.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Mal responds, and he actually sounds like he might mean it. Maybe that’s just relief.

*

Inara burns her robe.


End file.
